36 replies to this topic

[sharpshooter]

If Waltz doesn't come back in Bond 25, I'm fine with how it all ended in SPECTRE. It would've been a silly decision to kill Blofeld straight away after getting the character rights back. And I'm sure sparing Blofeld at the end was a win for democracy and the legal system, ala the discussion C and M have. 

[tonyvenhuizen]

I saw Spectre last week while visiting Boston, and flew home early the next morning.  On the flight, I was thinking about the movie.  I wrote out my thoughts.  Since I wrote this, I've seen a lot of other people who have drawn these same parallels and have a similar theory.  But I thought I would share what I wrote anyway:

 

007 and Spectre: Choose your next adventure carefully, Mr. Bond

 

Moviegoers worldwide should recognize this synopsis of a James Bond adventure:

 

James Bond finds himself face-to-face with one of the aging masters of a secretive criminal organization. Bond is asking where he can find the shadowy leader of SPECTRE. His aging host has a more personal request - that Bond care for and protect his daughter. A deal is struck, and Bond sets off for a specialty clinic perched atop an Alp. 

 

Bond follows the trail and discovers a sinister plan by SPECTRE's leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, that threatens every nation on earth. Bond has also fallen in love with the girl he had promised to protect. After a showdown with Blofeld neutralizes him as a threat, Bond chooses the girl over the Secret Service. 

 

That is a short summary of James Bond's 24th adventure, SPECTRE. 

 

But it is also perfectly fits another Bond film, 1969's ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. The shadowy mastermind was Marc-Ange Draco, leader of the Corsican mob, the Union Corse. His daughter:  Countess Teresa di Vicenzo or "Tracy," soon to be Mrs. James Bond.

 

OHMSS didn't have the same happy ending as SPECTRE, however. It had one more scene. As George Lazenby's James Bond leaves his wedding with his new wife, Tracy, Blofeld returns and machine guns the car. Bond realizes his bride is dead, as the film closes to the poignant Louis Armstrong theme, "We Have All the Time in the World."

 

That was not the Bond producer's original plan, however. 

 

Sean Connery ended his initial run as 007 after 1967's YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. That film ended with a ninja war in a secret volcano lair. Following it, Bond filmmakers decided to return to a more grounded approach. Casting Lazenby as 007, they faithfully adapted Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. 

 

Bond producers hoped to sign Lazenby to a seven-picture deal. Rather than end OHMSS with Tracy's death, they planned to close with the wedding scene. The following film, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, would open with the attack on Tracy, sending Bond on a revenge-fueled worldwide search for Blofeld. 

 

Lazenby, however, announced after filming OHMSS, but before its release, that he would not return to the part, and Bond producers ultimately paid Connery a record-breaking salary to revisit the role one more time. Rather than attempt to reshoot Tracy's death with Connery, producers closed OHMSS with the death sequence. DAF opens with Connery on an angry search for Blofeld, but never explains why he is seeking revenge. 

 

Throughout the 1960s, Bond filmmakers adapted Ian Fleming's novels without regard to chronology and continuity, and with varying degrees of adherence to the source material. As many Bond films such as GOLDFINGER were stand-alone stories, this was not a problem. 

 

It became a problem, however, when filmmakers took on the multi-part story of Blofeld and SPECTRE. In the Fleming novels, this story begins with Thunderball, continues with On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and ends with You Only Live Twice. 

 

Blofeld was added as a shadowing secret mastermind in the films DR. NO and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, deviating from both source novels.  The cinematic Bond did not come face-to-face with Blofeld until YOLT in 1967. 

 

That created a continuity problem two years later, when the faithful adaption of OHMSS portrayed Bond, undercover as an expert of heraldry, infiltrating Blofeld's Piz Gloria alpine clinic. How could Bond lie about his identify when he had met Blofeld in the previous film?

 

Filmmakers chose to totally ignore the continuity error. Moviegoers likely did, also, because Bond and Blofeld were both recast between YOLT and OHMSS. YOLT featured Connery as Bond and Donald Pleasance as Blofeld. OHMSS featured Lazenby's 007 and Telly Savalas as Blofeld. DAF continued the confusion, with Connery returning and Charles Gray as Blofled. Gray was a British actor who looked nothing like Pleasance or Savalas and had portrayed a different character in YOLT. 

 

The consequence? Rather than a sweeping, three-film SPECTRE epic in which Bond and Blofeld face off amidst higher and increasingly personal stakes, Bond fans were treated to three films with practically no continuity in plot or in casting. Blofeld never even died (unless one counts the bizarre death of the unidentified Blofeld-lookalike the opened FOR YOUR EYES ONLY more than ten years later).

 

And Tracy's death, the most emotional event in the series, was wasted. It is the biggest missed opportunity in the 53-year history of the franchise. And I believe it is about to be corrected.

 

You only adapt Fleming material twice

 

Daniel Craig's debut as James Bond was billed as a "reboot." Just as Fleming's Casino Royale was the first Bond novel, so was 2006's CASINO ROYALE the story of "Bond's first adventure." Drawing comparisons to Christopher Nolan's Batman reboot, critics dubbed it "Bond Begins."

 

The reboot was not just an opportunity to reconsider the Bond formula or to attract a new generation of fans.

 

It is also an opportunity to perfect the telling of the SPECTRE epic. The Craig era of films already mirror the Connery films.

 

The first films, DR. NO and CASINO ROYALE both feature a stand-alone story against a bizarre villain. In both films, the villain is apparently working alone, but is revealed late in the story to be a part of a larger criminal organization.

 

In the follow-up films, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE, the shadowy criminal organization takes center stage as Bond learns more about organization and confronts a massive conspiracy.

 

The third films, GOLDFINGER and SKYFALL, depart from the central narrative. Both feature memorable villains and absolutely no acknowledgement of any greater conspiracy. (Auric Goldfinger was in partnership with the Chinese communists. SKYFALLS's Silva was only revealed to have been part of SPECTRE in the following film.)

 

That brings us to the fourth films, THUNDERBALL and SPECTRE. Both put the shadowy organization front and center. Both feature the iconic meeting of the organization, with Blofeld presiding as a member of the group is murdered.

 

This is where the Connery and Craig eras diverge. THUNDERBALL ended without Bond facing Blofeld. What followed was the messy continuity of YOLT-OHMSS-DAF.

 

SPECTRE puts the Bond franchise in position to correct its error. It is THUNDERBALL and OHMSS rolled into one, and it leaves Bond as he was before the final scene of OHMSS. Blofeld is defeated and Bond has left the Secret Service for love.

 

What will happen next?

 

Daniel Craig will return, one last time, to complete the SPECTRE epic. Cristoph Waltz will return as Blofeld - there is no way the franchise will once again leave the loose end of Blofeld still alive.

 

And Bond producers adapt Fleming's You Only Live Twice. The 1967 film by that name used the title, the character names, and the setting of Japan. But the story was totally different and the novel's original material has never been adapted to film.

 

The film will begin by mirroring the closing of OHMSS. Blofeld, either escaped or operating from prison, engineers the death of Madeleine Swann. Remember what he told Bond in SPECTRE: You defeated LeChiffre so I killed Vesper. You defeated Quantum so I killed M. What else can be the consequence of defeated Blofeld himself?

 

Bond will want revenge. In Fleming's You Only Live Twice, M attempts to distract Bond from his bereavement with an easy diplomatic mission to Japan. Bond is to obtain access to Japanese intelligence. The Japanese agree, but make a request in return - that Bond infiltrate and destroy a "Garden of Death" that has become a troublesome magnet for those seeking to commit suicide. Bond agrees, and to his surprise discovers that the mysterious master of the Garden of Death is a disguised Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Bond kills Blofeld and avenges Tracy's death.

 

The "Garden of Death" is bizarre, but it is perhaps the most significant part of the Fleming canon that is yet to be adapted. A version of this story would be true to Fleming. And although filmmakers cannot reuse the title YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. And they don't need to, because the pseudonym Fleming created for Blofeld in You Only Live Twice is one of his most evocative: "Dr. Guntram Shatterhand."

 

That's my prediction. The Craig era and the SPECTRE epic will end with Bond 25: SHATTERHAND.

[Hockey Mask]

Bond 25:
Craig.
Mendez.
Shatterhand.

[sharpshooter]

Bond 25:
Craig.
Mendez.
Shatterhand.

I really hope Craig comes back. I don't think Mendes will, but Waltz and Bautista could. 

[Professor Pi]

I think Waltz will be in the next one as Blofeld, who can escape from anywhere as easy as Silva can.

 

Madeline won't be, because surely she was just like all the other girls 007 ends up with at the end of movies - we never see them again.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

It could be that they already filmed Madeleine's fate, whatever that may be, the way the ending of OHMSS was to start off the DAF pre-titles sequence. 

[Mr. White's Son]

Thanks, Pushkin.

 

I don`t wish to speak on behalf of the author; nor do I think his argument is exactly correct. Indeed, I`m not even sure that I would reject much of what he finds fearful.

 

But whether it is the theme of Spectre or just a motif, he is broadly correct in noting the importance placed by the movie on the ever increasing encroachment upon all our lives in the West of the surveillance society. I don`t dismiss this as a subplot in the film, but see it rather as an idea coursing through two parallel narratives that coalesce in the London conclusion. Clearly it is more prominent in the secondary narrative surrounding Fiennes` M; but it`s also there in the primary one with Bond, most evident in his meeting with Mr. White and made manifestly clear while in Blofeld`s lair with Swann.

 

I agree, Bond is not Snowden; but it seems to me that maybe the film is making an argument on Snowden`s behalf, at least analogously: that we (through the MI6 good guys in the movie) are all spied on--either in reality or potentially, and sometimes illegally--by our own governments. It`s an idea that`s hard to dismiss when the movie itself puts the plight of the MI6 crew (the spies are being spied on) in such an acute, barely-disguised real world context of intelligence alliances, nefarious relationships with non-state actors, pervasive surveillance, and debate over anti-terror measures.

 

Crucially, the movie invests the MI6 crew with the moral authority to go rogue in order to counteract government illegality (as represented by Denbigh). Strangely, it even attributes terrorist actions that we as viewers can hardly distinguish from contemporary real-world events and those behind them as false-flag ops to create the necessary environment for the introduction of repressive government security measures.

 

Welcome to the forum White's Son. 

 

I read through the article you posted the link to and had a few thoughts:

 

Clearly the film is dealing with the tension of governments monitoring civilians for security purposes and the basic rights of a democratic society. But this is only a subplot to the movie IMHO. While there have always been some limits as to what the character James Bond is prepared to do for King and Country (both in film and in the novels), he has also been willing to do some pretty nasty things.

 

I think its a stretch to suggest James Bond is a more muscular version of Edward Snowden. IMHO, Bond would never be prepared to take anything resembling the steps that Snowden did and in my mind, the tension between democracy and eaves dropping is one that M is most focussed on. 

[Mr. White's Son]

Dustin, thanks for the comments, especially your acute insight into the motivations of Craig`s Bond. Perhaps you`re right: that his only loyalty is to individuals rather than institutions or an ideology. I recall M`s remark in CR about the `big picture,` which Craig`s Bond, I think, only comes to understand much later, at the point of torture, when he sees that he`s just a pawn in a larger game. It will be interesting to see where a post-Craig Bond world will go.

 

We don`t in the West today have the same faith in our political classes and institutions that, say, people had in Fleming`s day. Bond, himself, was, I think, born of the British establishment in the 1950s as a means, in part, of redressing the damage done to it by the real-world betrayal of the Cambridge spies. That`s why it`s so interesting that Bond films today, in the Craig years, now convey a distrust, however mildly, of that very establishment. To that extent, the films themselves have gone rogue. What are we to make of Bond throwing his gun away at the end of Spectre? Doesn`t it suggest a rejection of what the gun must have represented to him, however unspoken, at some point in his evolution as a character. What it reminds me of is the action of a 1970s` Hollywood anti-hero turning his back on his political or institutional masters rather than the Bond of Fleming, Connery, Moore and Brosnan. Or perhaps the filmmakers thought it was just a cute dramatic effect. However much I love it, Spectre is a big, messy agglomeration of ambitious concepts not entirely resolved by the end--to say the least.

 

I accept the objections in what you see as an unconvincing use of this theme or motif of pervasive surveillance as little more than a McGuffin. Suffice to say that it works for me, but mostly in a suggestive and analogous way, rather than a plot-oriented one (see my remarks to Pushkin). Generally, the more plot-oriented a Bond film, the less interesting it is, so I`m happy that no more obvious emphasis is placed upon it in the film. (At the end of the day, I`m in it for the `girls, guns and gadgets,` as it were; but most especially for the style and panache of it all.) But to dismiss the pervasive, indeed illegal, use of surveillance as a McGuffin in Spectre is to overlook its weight of contemporary, even potentially controversial, significance, especially in the light of your incredibly apposite remark that none of us know where all this might lead.

 

 

Compelling, however:

We do see surveillance footage of White's suicide used by Blofeld to torture Swann emotionally while demonstrating his power over a physically ineffectual Bond; and we hear the recorded exchange between Bond and Moneypenny used by "C" to undermine both M and the "00" program. Are there more examples? Certainly we see evidence of both paranoia (such as the mouse episode, however funny) and legitimate fear (in the restaurant scene between M, MP and Q) induced by an omniscient state of surveillance. So I can't agree on that point.

There is no doubt the element of surveillance is there - but is it really more prominent than it would be in any espionage-themed tale? White monitored his own hideout, taping the footage. At the time it was likely the last thing on his mind to switch that off. But responsible for the footage turning up in Bloferhauser's hands was Bond because he didn't take the time to render the equipment inside that hut useless. And Moneypenny also isn't the classical victim of domestic spying. She's working in the trade and should - like Bond - calculate that there's always a chance of the wrong set of ears listening in. To me these two examples don't do much to underline the importance of the Big Brother subplot.

It would be different if Moneypenny and her boss had been taken into custody on the spot and detained to some camp in the Brecon Beacons, or if maybe they had shown how Q is blackmailed with stuff from his own hard drive to work along with this C type. But none of that happens. When the car with Bond and M is intercepted I was halfway expecting some coup taking place to ensure that Nine Eyes stays on track. But that too was not to be. If anything the way in which South Africa was made to change its opinion on the deal was painfully predictable. Any halfway decent executive in the intelligence trade would look in C's direction after the convenient terror attack.

For some it's a mess, but I see a lot of symbolism, suggestion, ambiguity and doubling effects in the London conclusion. This is something almost unheard of in the Bond canon: a prolonged, mostly visual means of demonstrating character, meaning and motivation. Is Spectre the most purely visual of all Bond films? Among many examples, I love that standing over Blofeld on the bridge, Bond empties the chamber of his gun in a reflection of Swann's identical act in the "training" episode on the train.

I agree that Bond's reason for quitting is predominantly personal (with several examples of Swann as the catalyst for his choice to do so). Certainly Bond must be physically and emotionally exhausted. And with Swann he now has the possibility of a life beyond--or at least a break from--his part-hitman, part-monk existence.

But consider that maybe his reasons for quitting are not entirely personal. I think we're meant to see Bond/Blofeld as a reflection of each other, most obviously in the shattered glass scene with Blofeld as traditional villain archetype empowered by the understanding, embodiment, and articulation of Bond's own emotional state, which our hero seems unable or unwilling to comprehend himself. In the husk of the MI6 building, Blofeld says: "Look around you, James, everything you believed in, a ruin." Does that not at least suggest an accompanying loss of faith in the old verities?

That's one of the things that didn't work for me, probably because I always associate the Vauxhall SIS building with Brosnan, not with Craig. If memory serves he was only once in QOS shown inside what I suppose was meant to be this building. I actually have trouble picturing him in one of its offices.

Otherwise, yes, SPECTRE is surely a very visual film with plenty of symbolism, much in the manner we've come to expect from a Craig Bond. As for the loss of faith - I would argue that began long before SPECTRE. Craig was always the Bond with the most cynical outlook on his profession. I cannot for the life of me imagine one of the others breaking into M's home or telling her the mistake to make him a 00 agent would soon correct itself in all likelihood. Also there are numerous lines of dialogue that point to a most pragmatic worldview, unhindered by any form of ideology. If there is any trust in institutions on display in Craig Bond's world it's usually grounded not on faith in the institutions themselves. Bond trusts the people inside them; they are the reason he's risking his life, not a flag or some capital letters or some abstract notion of whatever it is that drives people like him. He's doing it for the people, like taking orders from M's grave. Like taking her with him up to Scotland. Like quitting the first time for Vesper.

 

Edited by Mr. White's Son, 16 November 2015 - 05:32 AM.